Last year the Woodend Winter Arts Festival committee and community of volunteers and supporters were devastated by the loss of one of the founding members and half of the driving force behind its literary program, Sheila Drummond, who died in February 2020.
It was before the pandemic or any of its disastrous consequences had reached our shores – but the two events combined to mark 2020 as the first year without the festival in the Macedon Ranges since 2005.
In honour of her unwavering belief in all the good that the Festival could create by making a space for sharing words and ideas, the 2021 Festival program proudly presents the inaugural Sheila Drummond Memorial Lecture.
The lecture will be presented by one of Australia's most loved and famed public intellectuals, Barry Jones AC, a lifelong friend of Sheila and Don Drummond.
He is also famously a former activist (including campaigning against the death penalty throughout the 60s), former politician, teacher, lawyer, writer, quiz champion, a prolific writer (latest book What Is to Be Done: Political Engagement and Saving the Planet), and listed by the National Trust as one of Australia's National Living Treasures.
Tickets are $20. The Sheila Drummond Memorial Lecture will be held at St Ambrose Hall, Woodend, 10am on Saturday 12 June.
Please check the website for updates about COVID-related impacts on scheduled events as restrictions change in response to the pandemic.
